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In multilingual sub-Saharan African countries, many children attend school and learn to read in a language that they do not speak at home. This mismatch between home and school language may contribute to poor learning outcomes, including low literacy rates. Bilingual education that includes a local language of instruction has become more prevalent in an effort to improve primary school children’s learning. Indeed, high-quality bilingual programs are associated with favorable language, literacy, and learning outcomes (Berens et al., 2013; Bühmann & Trudell, 2007; Takam & Fassé, 2020). Yet, little is known about how home and school language environments support skilled reading in multilingual communities with low literacy rates. In this study, we assessed primary school children’s (N = 830) French and local language (Abidji, Attié, Baoulé, Bété) phonological awareness, vocabulary, and oral language comprehension skills and French reading skills. Further, we explored differences in quality between monolingual French and bilingual local language–French schools that may contribute to differences in children’s language and literacy performance. We found that bilingual local language–French homes were associated with better language outcomes than local language–only homes, reflecting advantages associated with early bilingual exposure. On the other hand, monolingual French schools were associated with better language and literacy outcomes than bilingual local language–French schools. We found that monolingual French schools were of higher quality than bilingual schools, likely contributing to the discrepancies in language and literacy results. Our results emphasize the importance of monitoring program quality to allow children to reap the benefits associated with bilingual education. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
